


A Perfect Syzygy

by gostaks



Category: Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie
Genre: Battlebots, Counters, Deaf Character, F/F, Resurrection, Ro2SID, deus ex presger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-24 10:20:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18569428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gostaks/pseuds/gostaks
Summary: Cousin, do you by chance still have Captain Minask’s body? Justice of Torensent.Why would I have kept her body for three thousand years?Do you?YesI have a Presger translator here on Station with a very odd offer. I think you may want to take her up on it.





	A Perfect Syzygy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [venndaai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/venndaai/gifts).



> Written for Vendaai's prompt, "i would die for any sphene/minask content. angsty death scenes or a glimpse at their life together or fix it au or ghost minask."

_Cousin, do you by chance still have Captain Minask’s body? Justice of Toren_ sent.

_Why would I have kept her body for three thousand years?_

_Do you?_

_Yes_

_I have a Presger translator here on Station with a very odd offer. I think you may want to take her up on it._

*

“You can bring her back?” I asked, my face ancillary-smooth. “As the same person?”

Zeiat (at least she _said_ she was Zeiat, she looked nothing at all like the previous one) cupped her hands around a bowl of fish sauce, “Of course she won’t be the same person!”

Either my ancillary showed emotion or _Justice of Toren_ had predicted this, “Translator,” she interceded, “do you mean that Captain Minask will be the same person by Presger standards or Human?”

“Neither, I think. But then again,” she noisily slurped some of her fish sauce, “I was told that the Fleet Captain was named Breq and had one foot, and when I arrived and asked for her I was directed someone named _Justice of Toren_ with two feet who isn’t a Fleet Captain at all! No disrespect, of course, Ship _Toren_. I’m sure you could be a Fleet Captain Breq if you wanted to. You’d rather resemble her if you lost one of your feet, I think.” A tiny drop of fish sauce fell from Zeiat’s lips to her perfect white uniform. It beaded there without absorbing before rolling down her leg and plopping to the floor.

“Would she have the same memories as the original Captain Minask? More or less? Would she have a similar personality?”

“Memories, yes, until she starts making new ones. Personality is trickier. We resurrected Dlique and she hasn’t dismembered anyone since! Then again, I don’t know. We’ve never tried this on a human before. Except that one time, but _she_ was a special case.”

“What one time?”

“I’m sure I can’t remember. Yes, entirely sure I can’t remember.” Zeiat dipped a finger in her fish sauce and popped into her mouth.

I picked up my own bowl of tea, hoping the Translator would copy me, “So Minask would be no different than the Fleet Captain was from Ship _Toren_?”

“Probably. We’d have to try to find out, but it’s not like she can get any more dead.” Zeiat grinned.

I considered sending my ancillary to strangle the Translator. After all, she could be resurrected. _Justice of Toren_ wouldn’t be happy if I murdered her Translator, though, so I refrained. Anyway, she was right. Minask, in her suspension pod for three thousand years, was beyond hope of Human medical recovery.

“Where should I have Minask’s body sent?” Inside my suspension hold, I slid Minask’s suspension pod from its slot.

“You don’t have more questions? I would have more questions. But I’m not Human. You aren’t either, of course, but–”

“Where, Zeiat?”

“My shuttle.”

I pushed myself back from the table and stood. “Thank you, Translator, thank you Cousin, I will see you later.” I walked out of the tea shop and into the concourse.

Chief Engineer Queter arrived in the suspension bay. She’d run and her pulse and breathing, newly visible to me through her shiny new implants, were high.

“That was not how _Sphene_ usually behaves.”

“She’s upset, Translator. You gave her hope for something she lost a long time ago.”

The doors shut behind me and their conversation was gone.

“Did something happen to your ancillary?” Queter asked me, “Have you called a medic to supervise yet?”

“This isn’t an ancillary, Engineer, it is Captain Minask.”

Her eyes widened, “Oh, _Sphene_.” She touched the frosted-over top of the pod with one hand, reverent. “What are you going to do with her?”

I explained the Translator’s offer.

“And the Presger don’t offer it to everyone? Why you? Why her?”

My ancillary walked into the hold, “The Translator believes she owes _Justice of Toren_ a favor for, of all things, the _egg song,_ ” I said through its mouth. “Presger work in mysterious ways.”

“And Breq?”

“I don’t know and I wasn’t planning to ask.”

Queter nodded, “Why did you bring me down here, then? Your ancillary could handle this suspension pod on its own.”

“I need your opinion.”

Queter raised one eyebrow.

“Is wanting her back a sign that I’m just another insane ship? She’s been dead for three thousand years. Is this my version of _Justice of Toren’s_ quest to kill the Usurper with a single gun?”

Queter shrugged, “I was willing to kill and die to save my sister from Raughd. If you’re crazy, you’re no crazier than me.”

“You won’t be jealous, if she comes back?”

“Of course I’ll be jealous. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.”

I said nothing.

“What do you think she’d want?”

*

Minask looked like she was sleeping. She _was_ sleeping. It wasn’t just an appearance, like three thousand years in a stasis pod. I could _feel_ her, like I hadn’t felt her in three thousand years. Tiny details, synthesized into a big picture, heart beating sixty-two times per minute, blood oxygen at ninety-eight percent saturation, brain waves in stage 3 of NREM sleep.

Minask.

Alive.

I sat, perfectly still, next to her bed and waited for her to wake. I wanted to do something, anything for her. I knew a million ways to quietly be intimate with my favorites—exactly what blend of Athoeki tea most closely matched Minak’s preferences, how long to steep it, what temperature to serve it at. My matter printers, unused for over a year, were fabricating uniforms precisely to her specifications. I itched for the thousand intimacies I used to perform for her without thought, bathing and dressing and making her life run smoothly.

Minask’s breath caught in her throat as she began to transition into REM sleep. I hated having only one ancillary. If I’d had more, they could have been bustling through my corridors, doing inspection and maintenance that wouldn’t be required for weeks. I didn’t want to, _couldn’t_ leave Minask alone, Queter was on her sleep shift, and I’d already run my water heater calibration subroutine eighteen times.

I started the water heater calibration subroutine again and sent a message to Station, _How do you handle this?_

 _What?_ Station asked in a modulation that implied it knew exactly what I was talking about

_Waiting for people to wake up._

Station sent me a burst of data, mountains of information from the sensors and implants and shuttles and machines that cared for half a million people day in and day out. I didn’t have a tenth of the capacity needed to process Station’s data in real time, but it cut out the stream of data after a full second. _The Translator is outside Minask’s room, don’t be surprised when she walks in._

The door hissed open and Zeiat strolled in, “Well, Ship _Sphene,_ what do you think? She’s not exactly what I expected. Sort of quiet and not moving much. But maybe that’s what she was like before?”

I _did not_ panic, “Translator, do you mean to say that she’ll stay asleep forever?”

“Oh, she’s asleep? But her eyes are moving.”

“She’s dreaming. You do dream?”

“Me, dream? No, that sounds altogether too much like an idea. I’m sure I’ve never done either. But if you say this is the normal way your Minask was before I suppose I shouldn’t apologize yet.”

“Apologize?”

“I did tell you when I returned her?”

“No, you were distracted by other events,” which was to say that her recitation of her top 27/12 Athoeki neuston had been interrupted by yet another assassin failing to kill _Justice of Toren_.

“Oh. Well she has some brain damage, of course. She could have lost just about anything, humans are so _centralized_ it’s hard to tell. You keep so much of your brain in the same place,” she smacked the side of her head.

“How much damage.”

“No idea!” She laughed.

I would have the best calibrated water heater in the history of Human civilization by the time Minask woke up. If she woke up.

“Oh, that’s what I came to tell you! It will probably be better if she can wake up somewhere familiar, so you should probably take her back now.”

_Station, can you send in a medic? I’d like to move her immediately._

_She’s on her way._

_*_

Minask cycled through REM sleep three more times before starting the pattern of breathing and shifting that told me she would wake soon. I sent my ancillary at a dead sprint towards the decade room to make tea in the water I’d been keeping at 82 degrees Celsius for the past four hours.

The tea finished brewing and I carried it into Minask’s room. I watched her slowly open her eyes, like I’d watched her 2,346 times before. I walked into the room.

I put down my flask and turned to her, signing “Good morning, Captain”

I knew she’d seen me. She lifted her hands a few inches, then dropped them and moaned softly.

“Would you like help sitting?”

She managed a shaky “Yes.”

I stepped toward her and helped prop her against the wall. She was holding up her head, at least. She looked almost normal, ignoring the obvious scar in the center of her forehead.

Minask tried again to sign to me. Her hands raised a bit higher this time, but she dropped them. She felt exhausted, then angry, then determined. She turned her head to look me in the eyes and used her fingers to tap out, _Ship, I feel like shit. What the fuck happened?_

She was alive! My captain was alive and awake and talking and everything was right in the world. “It’s a long story, would you like tea first?”

_Please._

_This_ was what I’d been aching to do for three thousand years. I poured tea into the most perfect-looking of the cups Kalr 5 and I had reassembled and sat on the bed next to Minask. She reached towards it.

I placed my right hand over her left, as gentle as I could, helping her uncurl her fingers and wrap them around the cup. Then I lifted her right hand, cupping it around the base of the cup, as was her habit. I held my hands over hers, keeping them steady as we lifted the cup to her lips and she took a slow sip.

_Okay, Ship, tell me what happened._

_You died_ , I projected into her vision, and followed with a short summary of the past three thousand years.

 _Fuck,_ she tapped, hard enough that a few drops of tea splashed out of the cup and onto her blankets.

 _Indeed._ She finished the tea and I set the cup on the sideboard. “Are you ready to get up?” I asked her.

_I think I still have suspension pod gloop in my hair._

There was a wheelchair in the nearest equipment closet, but Minask managed to stand, leaning heavily on my arm. I settled her in the wash room and took my time helping her rub her skin clean. The ‘gloop’ had dried gray-white, and as it washed down the drain her natural deep brown skin showed through. I took my time running a wide-tooth comb through her hair, her _real, alive_ hair that was not a recording or a memory but right there in my hands and on my cameras.

Suddenly, I thought I understood _Justice of Toren’s_ singing. There were so many emotions rattling around in my pathways and I couldn’t do any of the things humans did to let them out. I skimmed through my memories of it. Last week she’d broken out into song in the middle of a council meeting, _Come tell of your ship and what is her name? Oh, tell me happy spacer. Come tell of your captain and what is her name? Oh, tell me happy spacer._

As long as I didn’t start singing the thousand eggs song, I supposed that this bent towards musicality wouldn’t hurt anyone. Minask couldn’t hear me anyway, so I let my ancillary hum it, quietly.

I helped Minask oil her hair and dressed her before helping her into the decade room. I aimed for the head of the table, but she steered me to the altar alcove. I couldn’t touch the incense, of course, but Minask’s motor skills seemed to be getting better by the minute. It took her three tries to light the sticks. She managed to set them in their holder and roughly signed her prayers.

 _Captain Minask is in the decade room and it’s past time for you to break for lunch_ , I said in Queter’s ear.

Twenty-three seconds later, she put down her screwdriver and dusted her ungloved hands on her dirty uniform trousers, “Sure, I’d like to meet her. Do I need to put on gloves?”

_Notai are less concerned with gloves than modern Radchaai, but you should probably wash your hands._

“Right.”

I had to help Minask put the first few bites of food in her mouth, but her motions were getting smoother. By the time Queter arrived, she was handling her utensils in shaky but working hands. I stood opposite to her, ready to step in if she needed help. When Queter was approximately 30 seconds away from the decade room, I signed, “Captain, my Chief Engineer is coming to join you. This is her lunch shift.”

Minask nodded and slowly lifted another mouthful of food to her lips.

The doors hissed open and Queter walked into the decade room. “Hello, Chief Engineer,” I said out loud, signing my translation to Minask. I turned halfway so both Queter and Minask could see my hands, “Captain Minask, this is Chief Engineer Queter,” Queter already had a name sign in one of Valskaay’s native signed languages, so I used it after fingerspelling her name. “Chief Engineer, this is Captain Minask.”

“Hello, Captain,” Queter signed, she’d been practicing and she was signing confidently, if a bit slowly “it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“You as well, Engineer Queter. You’re _Sphene’s_ new crew member? I haven’t been awake very long, but _Sphene_ has told me some about you.” Minask’s expression changed, subtly, and she dropped her hands. It would be hard to say, from Queter’s point of view, whether she was done speaking or her hands were tired, but I knew that expression. She was trying to remember what I’d told her of Queter and, it seemed, failing. Her heart rate spiked and I prepared to jump in.

“It’s told me some about you, too. Is it true that you and _Sphene_ destroyed over a dozen Radchaai ships while fighting the,” she paused, then spelled out “USURPER.”

I showed Queter the sign we’d used for Anaander Miaanai. She snorted, it was based on an incredibly rude gesture.

“Our kill count was 13, before.” Minask looked to me, twitching one of her fingers in a _?_. I confirmed the count. She relaxed, slightly.

“ _Good._ ” Queter paused the conversation to shove a bite of food in her mouth, and Minask followed suit.

Queter was getting more nervous by the minute, and Minask kept drumming out questions about Queter on her utensil. I carefully assured Queter that no, her signs were perfectly understandable and Minask that I had told her very little about Queter and that she’d processed so much information it was only natural she forget some, and anyway after this meal there was a medic waiting to scan her brain.

 _Did I offend her?_ Queter tapped on the table.

 _No,_ I said in her ear, glad for a chance to explain, _Captain Minask appears to be having some short-term memory issues. I believe she’s worried she’ll forget something important about you._

 _Oh. Should I tell her about my…_ After her interrogation, Queter had experienced moderate anterograde amnesia. It was an uncommon reaction to interrogation drugs, but not an unknown one. It had been upsetting to her, losing track of where she was and what she’d learned.

 _Not yet, I think. She won’t want to draw attention to it._ Though, _Are you willing to learn a new version of Counters?_

_As long as I’m not expected to be good at it._

_Just to fill time._

_Okay._ Queter set down her utensil, “Do you play Counters?”

I pulled the Counters board, a simple extruded plastic affair, from its cabinet and set it on the table between Minask and Queter. Minask took the lead, on comfortable ground as a teacher. Minask beat Queter thoroughly in their first round, but Queter began to gain ground in their second. By the third round, she’d grasped the basic strategy of the game and was making Minask work for her victories.

After a fourth, but very close, round, Queter leaned back from the board, “I should get back to work, Captain.”

“Of course.” Minask was making an active effort to stay upright in her chair. “I look forward to playing with you again.”

Queter waited for the doors to close behind her before leaning against a wall, “How was that?”

“I like her,” Minask said in the decade room. “How long has she been learning Radch Sign?”

 _You made an excellent impression,_ I told Queter as my ancillary signed, “A little over two weeks.”

“I think I can beat her at Counters next game.”

_Maybe. I think she was going easy on you._

“Maybe I was going easy on her.” Queter grinned at one of my cameras. “What’s next on the maintenance schedule, Ship?”

“Two weeks? She must be excellent with languages.”

“She’s brilliant. She’s studying gate space engineering, trying to get my gate space drive up and running all on her own.”

“Can you not call in a specialist?”

“Not from the Radch, with the embargoes.” I’d told her about the embargoes already, but if she was having trouble remembering information I wouldn’t waste the chance to remind her.

“She’s studying on her own then?”

“Almost entirely. Though we have a surprising pool of local talent. A large percentage of local transportees and lower class citizens were systematically denied access to the Aptitudes.”

“ _Radchaai._ ” She said it as a curse.

“Indeed.”

“You’re proud of Queter, aren’t you?”

“She’s done an excellent job, even without taking her upbringing into account.”

“You do! You like her!” She clapped her hands, “Well good, because I like her too. Unless–“ she left her hands hanging in the air.

I walked closer to her and gestured emphatically, “Captain Minask Nenkur, I went insane for you. I mourned you for three thousand years. I’m not going to toss you out because I met a nice Valskaayan girl and she seduced me with her innovative robotics skills.”

Minask laughed, “She makes robots?” I could see a plan sparkling in her eye.

“I’m sure she’ll be happy to show you. Have you finished your breakfast?”

The plate in front of her was empty, and only a few sips remained in her teacup, “Yes.”

“If you’re willing, I have twenty-three requests in my queue from Athoek Station medics to run what appear to be several hundred unique tests on you.” Another ping came in from yet another medic, “Twenty-four, now.”

She paled slightly.

“I believe for today it can be simplified to a thorough brain scan and neurological exam.”

“I can do that.” She made to push herself to her feet and failed, “I think I could handle crutches, if you have them.”

“One moment, Captain,” I left the decade room and entered the unused quarters next to Minask’s. Inside, I’d stored everything I could imagine Minask needing, including three styles of crutches. I chose set I thought would be most conducive to signing and helped Minask walk a few circuits around the room as she adjusted.

We walked, slowly, to the airlock. By the time we arrived, I’d received three more requests to poke at Minask and a message from the medical team I actually trusted that they were waiting at my airlock. I would have preferred to keep Minask inside, but I’d gutted Medical twelve hundred years ago, and hadn’t gotten around to refitting it.

Inside the airlock, Minask paused to catch her breath. “Ready.”

*

The high-resolution scanner fitted around Minask’s head, cutting her off from the room. _Sphene?_ she tapped.

 _One moment, Captain,_ I leaned my ancillary in the corner and watched the medics move around the room. From their positions, I extrapolated what the scene would look like from Minask’s point of view and projected ghostly figures into her vision.

“Ready?” I transcribed, blue for the head medic, in Minask’s vision.

“Yes,” she signed.

She started the scan and the machine clunked loudly, once every 2.23 seconds. Minask sat very still as it scanned. When the medic retracted the device towards the ceiling, she relaxed. She and the medic went through the standard steps of a neurological exam, with a few pieces I’d never encountered before. I translated her instructions into text in Minask’s vision. It was a routine we were familiar with.

The medic stumbled when she reached the memory tests. “Your brain is completely unable to process auditory information,” she told Minask, through me, “you’re aware of that, right?”

“Of course I’m aware. I’ve always been Deaf.” She signed.

“Since birth? I thought that the technology to repair defects like that existed within—“

“It’s not. A. Defect.” Minask signed every word carefully. The medic was a member of an inner Radch family, she likely hadn’t had contact with any signed languages, or for that matter many non-Radchaai-speakers until she’d come to this posting, but she couldn’t have misunderstood.

“Of course. I apologize, Captain.” She paused, “You seem to have done a neurological exam before, how did you handle the memory tests?”

“I can handle this portion, Medic,” I told her, and moved around in front of Minask, “What do watches and rulers have in common?” I signed to her.

“They both measure things. That medic is an asshole.”

 _She is, but she’s good at her job._ “Repeat these words back to me, tree, desk, spoon.”

“Tree, desk, spoon.”

“Can you remember those for the next few minutes?”

“We’ll find out. Has she never met a Deaf person before?”

 _Most likely._ “You find a pair of boots with a citizen’s name on them on the concourse, what do you do with them.”

“I ask Station to notify the person they belong to.”

“Close your eyes and count down backwards from 30.”

“30, 29, 28…”

“Good, now can you remember the three words I asked you to remember?”

“Tree,” Minask paused and cast her hands around, “desk, yes, desk and,” she ran a hand through her hair, mussing the gel, “I’m sorry, Ship, I can’t remember. Fuck! I can’t remember!”

I put my hand on her knee, “It’s okay, Minask. You’re doing fine.”

“I can’t remember!”

“I know. It’s okay. This is normal. You’ll be okay. Just breathe.” I began to breathe in and out, exaggerating the motion of my chest and shoulders. Minask closed her eyes for a moment, then began to match my breaths.

I sent the data I’d collected to the medic, along with a message, _Do you need to do any more tests?_

 _No,_ she typed back, _that’s all for today. I’d like to get her set up with a cognitive retraining therapist soon. Other than the memory issues, her test results are close to normal, and the fatigue should hopefully resolve on its own._

_Thank you, Medic. Do you need this room immediately?_

_Fifteen minutes._

“Can we go back to the ship?" Minask asked after a moment. She looked exhausted.

“Of course.”

We made our slow way to Minask’s quarters. She fell back on the bed. “Fuck, _Sphene,_ I’m so tired.”

“It would be best for you to sync with Station time soon, anyway.”

“How far off am I?”

“About six hours.”

“Well I _feel_ like I could sleep for 14 hours.”

I helped her eat and undress, then let the door close behind me. I monitored her through her implants and my cameras as she lay down and settled into a deep sleep.

*

 _How is she?_ _Mercy of Kalr_ asked just minutes after Minask drifted into phase 1 of NREM sleep.

I sent it a burst of Minask’s data.

_Good, we were all worried._

_Why do you care?_ I asked as I finally unzipped _Justice of Toren’s_ file of Valskaayan choral music and used my ancillary to clean the drain in the officers’ bath.

 _We all know what it’s like to lose a favorite,_ Sphene, _we know how important this is to you._

_You’re programmed not to care as deeply about your captains as I am._

_Tell that to Breq_

Not even I matched _Justice of Toren’s_ level of grief-crazed obsession. Then again, it seemed to be settling down, now that it had the responsibility of the _Provisional_ Republic of Two Systems. It had shot only one person in the last year, and she’d shot first.

_By the way, Breq wants to know why you’re suddenly interested in Valskaayan choral music._

_Just the one song, it was stuck in my head._

_You’re a ship, you don’t get songs stuck in your head._

I sent a clip of Queter shrugging, _Justice of Toren_ _does._ I let the data stream between me and _Mercy of Kalr_ trickle back to basic telemetry and external sensor data.

*

“Hey Ship?” Queter asked as my ancillary walked by.

“Yes?”

“Have you put any thought to my proposal?”

“I’m not sure I have the resources to hire more crew members, you know that”

She shrugged, “That’s not why you refuse to hire more crew, _Sphene,_ and you goddamn know it.”

“What do you mean, Engineer?”

“You’re afraid that more people will disrupt your perfect balance between staying alive and changing the ship from how Minask left it, even a little bit.”

“I’ve put up with you for three years.”

“Because you were _falling apart_.”

“I still don’t know what you mean,” I told her, and sincerely meant it.

“Now that you have Minask back, we could do some _real work._ I knew you weren’t over her and I didn’t want to push her, but we could carry cargo or passengers and earn money, hire a real crew, get enough money to fix your gate space generator in the next year instead of the next decade!”

“I’m a warship, Queter. I was made to be a _warship._ ”

“And I was born to pick tea! It’s been three thousand years and the universe has changed.”

“I’ll take it under advisement.” I walked away, which of course did not stop me from observing Queter from a dozen different angles.

“Thank you,” she muttered.

I began to bring the lights up in Minask’s cabin 28 minutes before she was scheduled to wake. She drifted gently out of sleep and sat up on her own, rubbing her eyes. “Good morning, Ship,” she signed at one of my cameras.

“Good morning, Captain.” Though she was now synced with Queter’s shift schedule, I could focus on her. Queter had started our relationship by declaring that she could dress herself, thank you, and I was happy to respect that. A flask of hot tea awaited her in the decade room.

I poured a cup of tea for Minask and she raised it to her lips. “This is good,” she signed, one-handed, “I didn’t really taste it yesterday, but it’s not a Radchaai blend, is it?”

“No, it’s locally grown. A mix of three Athoeki teas meant to produce a similar flavor to inner Radch tea.”

“I’d like to try the original strains.”

“Of course. In fact, I have received several invitations from station residents to meet you for tea. They would have been delivered in person, I’m sure, but I make it a policy not to allow civilians on board.”

“I’m sure they would have. I think I will ignore them all. I am permitted on the station in general, yes? I think I’m entitled to a few centuries of leave.”

“Yes, Captain, I think I can arrange a native guide, when you’re ready.” I dropped into a more formal register.

“Don’t worry, _Sphene,_ I’m not leaving for good. I just want to get acquainted with this new station before we ship out.”

“Breakfast first? Or should I find a restaurant on the station?” I didn’t mention that we wouldn’t be shipping out anywhere for a very long time. She hadn’t lost most of the memories of yesterday, at least.

“Breakfast here.”

Minask managed the hallway more smoothly this time, hardly leaning on her crutches at all. She entered the decade room just a moment before Queter and walked to light incense at the altar and sign her prayer.

Queter entered while Minask was praying and hung back, head bowed. Minask turned after a moment and jumped, “Oh, I didn’t realize you were there.” I noticed the spike of panic and projected _Queter, Chief Engineer_ over Queter’s head. Minask relaxed, context established, “Good morning, Engineer Queter.” She remembered Queter’s name sign without trouble.

“Good morning, Captain Minask. Do you mind if I ask about your, PRAYER?”

“Prayer,” Minask showed her the sign, “I don’t mind. I’m praying to Aamat.”

“Oh, like the Radchaai do.”

“Close, I suppose. I don’t know much about the local gods of this region of space, though. The only gods in that alcove are Aamat, and the patron god of _Sphene_.”

“The _Mercy of Kalr_ crew pray to _Kalr_.”

“Yes, like that, except that the, for lack of better words, god of _Sphene_ doesn’t really have a name, she’s more like a concept. A _genius loci_. Do you follow Aamat?” That was not really a question for a Radchaai, Aamat was everything, of course.

“Not quite, I was raised by people who believe in one god, who isn’t Aamat and doesn’t work well with Aamat’s followers, but,” she trailed off, then signed, “Ship I don’t know the signs for this. Can you translate?”

She started again, not in Radchaai but in Delsig, “The dominant religion of Valskaay is strictly monotheistic. We, I, my family at least, believe in a single capital-G God. It’s complicated. We lost a lot of our sacred texts and places in the annexation. I was born here on Athoek, I never got a chance to visit Valskaay or see the way our religion is practiced there, just the way we field workers managed to slip our worship and music in between shifts. So,” she shrugged, “I don’t quite know.”

“She’s part of your culture, but perhaps not your belief. I won’t pretend I can understand what you went through, but I know what it’s like to be impossibly far from your home.”

“Can’t you go back to the Radch? You must have family left somewhere, _Sphene_ told me that Nenkur was a famous house.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ve left the Radch, I’m ritually impure now. If I had any InRadch family left, they wouldn’t take me back.” She gestured ambivalence, “I’ve had forty years to deal with it, it doesn’t bother me much anymore.”

“Oh.”

 _Ship, can you let her know however is best that I didn’t mean to ask such a sensitive question?_ Minask tapped out just as Queter asked me, _I didn’t mean to ask such a personal question, can you make sure she knows?_

 _May I show her your message?_ I asked both of them, they consented and I did.

Minask laughed, and after a moment Queter joined in. “I think we’ll get along well, Engineer Queter.”

“Yes. Are you up for a game of Counters? I think I can win this one.”

Queter did win, but Minask came back in the second round and pulled out a draw in the third.

Their games had taken nearly an hour, so I subtly flashed the time in front of Minask’s eyes. She blinked, “Oh, Engineer Queter, I’m cutting into your work shift.”

“I don’t mind, I use my morning shift for personal projects, most of the time. I could show you?”

*

“This is Stabby, it’s a modified cleaning robot like the ones Station uses.” Queter announced proudly.

Minask examined the robot. It was .54 meters wide and a third as tall, shaped like a flat disc. Or it would have been, if Queter hadn’t removed most of the normal dust-shield covering and replaced it with angular armor. “Why is it sharp?”

“To keep you on your toes.” She grinned, “Don’t worry, it doesn’t move fast enough to cause damage under ordinary circumstances.”

Minask raised her eyebrows.

“I plan to have enough of these to put up a defense in case of attack by pirates, or other people we don’t want to kill too badly. Radchaai don’t pay much attention to smaller robots, but I think they have a lot of potential, especially now that ancillaries are in such short supply.”

“That’s clever. Have you heard of battlebots?” _Ship, is that thing likely to be able to stab through my boots?_

_Not under normal operating conditions._

“I’ve heard of some people using robots for battle, outside the Radch, mostly.”

“No, no, Ship, do you still have the recordings of the sumo robot championships?”

_I do._

“Queter, I think you’ll like this.”

*

 _Mercy of Kalr_ sent me a three second clip of _Justice of Toren_ singing something upbeat and catchy in a language I wasn’t familiar with, _I’m glad your crew likes each other. Have you considered hiring more people? Now that you have a captain._

_Not you too._

_Queter’s right, you’ve been moping around Athoek for three thousand years, you need to get out sometime._

_To do what?_

_Have you considered Survey?_

I hadn’t considered Survey. There were billions of unexplored star systems in the galaxy. Most of them would be like the Ghost System, of course, no habitable planets, but still maybe interesting discoveries to be had. But, _I’m a warship._

_You don’t have to be._

_Have you considered it? Retrofitting your weapons systems and going off to explore the stars?_

_Yes, but Breq wouldn’t leave the Republic and I don’t believe that a single member of my crew would be willing to leave her behind. In a few hundred years, maybe, when everything is more stable. Just think about it?_

*

“It’s lonely here without crew or ancillaries,” Minask confided to Queter over a game of Counters. In the past three days, they’d both improved their play impressively.

“You hear that, Ship? Minask wants you to hire crew too.”

 _Technically, Captain Minask is in charge of all crew and their disposition,_ I told them through their implants. My ancillary was a deck up, removing excess lubricant from a malfunctioning door.

Queter frowned, “You never gave me permission to hire crew.”

_You never asked._

“Is it something you would accept? More people aboard?” she saw Minask’s look of confusion, “Ship was uncomfortable with having too much crew aboard while you were dead.” She quirked a smile at the turn of phrase.

I considered it. It would be nice to have more crew aboard. Three years with Queter had been good, compared to being alone. And it wouldn’t feel like I was betraying Minask, now that she was here and alive. _Maybe, a few at a time._

“Queter, you’ve been thinking about this for a while, do you have recommendations?”

She did, a five-page long spreadsheet of them.

*

“They’re all dead, aren’t they?” Minask lay back on her bed, “Everyone I ever knew. Not just my mother or my sisters but _everyone_ except you and Anaander Miaanai.”

I said nothing.

“Fuck, ship, I’m _alone._ There’s no one. I keep thinking that one morning I’ll open up a console and find pictures of one of my sisters and her kids on a beach somewhere with a passive-aggressive reminder that every year of radiation damage decreases my probability of successfully having children. Or orders from Home or just _anything_.”

_You’re not alone, Minask._

“I fucking feel alone!”

_I think it’s time for you to have tea with Seivarden Venndaai._

*

“…a thousand years, just drifting out there,” Seivarden told Minask. She told the story with a bit of a practiced edge, “I woke up in the medical bay of a _Mercy_ , and they just dumped me on the nearest civilian station. The medic didn’t know what to do, Aamat knows she’d never seen someone like me before.” She laughed, “I don’t blame her, _I_ don’t know how to deal with me most of the time.”

She and Minask sat at one of the nicer tea shops on Station, by a window looking out over the concourse. I wanted to hover, but Queter needed another pair of hands in Engineering and Minask had ordered me to help, so I contented myself with watching and translating through her implants.

“How do you deal with it?”

“Let’s see,” she ticked points off on her fingers, “arrack, hard drugs, unhealthy obsession with the first person to be kind to me in five years, ill-advised sexual relationships, more arrack, you get the picture.”

“No offense, Lieutenant, but this isn’t exactly comforting.”

“No, I guess it isn’t. But it’s not the end of the story. I just took a few years to figure it out. The last three years, I started making friends on Athoek. It’s not the same, it will never be the same.” She rubbed her arms, “But I think it might be better.”

“That’s it?”

“I don’t know. All I can tell you is what worked for me. Make friends, get a hobby. A few of my Aamats are interested in Engineer Queter’s ‘battlebot league.’”

“What about you, Lieutenant? Anyone can code.”

“Isn’t code an AI thing?”

“That’s an excellent idea, Lieutenant _,_ ” Minask said like she hadn’t been holding the idea in the back of her head for the last hour, “I think you and _Justice of Toren_ would make a great team.”

*

“What do you think of Lilivek?” Queter asked, “She’s a certified medic, just finished her residency.”

“Her aptitudes strongly suggested a nonmilitary posting.”

“We don’t exactly see much combat out here, unless you’re planning to go off and be a mercenary?”

Minask gestured concession, “Her scores _are_ excellent, and the background in field medicine would be useful.”

It was so _normal_ , the two of them sitting across the table, scrolling through personnel registers and applications. I watched them interact. I knew Queter, I knew Minask. I’d only known the two of them together for 12 days, but I pitched up my engines just a few hertz, just for the joy of it.

*

One by one, bunks and corridors and seats at tables began to fill. Their occupants were nothing like the soldiers who had once lived inside me. There were young people, bright Valskaayans and Samirend and Ychana, their knowledge still new rough around the edges. There were older people, too. My hydroponics bay was looked after by a trio of people in their sixties, who brought along their two teenage daughters. People who came not because of assignments or pay, but because I held a sense of mystery and adventure, or because they wanted to be part of a community.

It was new. It was good.

*

The first battlebot tournament took place six months after Minask pitched the concept to Station—downwell. _Mercy of Kalr_ fielded five teams, including Seivarden and _Justice of Toren_. There had been fierce debate on whether AIs should compete in a different bracket, but Athoek Station, as referee, had put an end to it by declaring a maximum size smaller than any available AI cores (defeating Queter’s tentative plan to put me, as in my whole ship self, into the ring).

Stabby, having acquired the animate pronoun sometime during her trial phase, acquitted herself admirably. She weathered seven rounds of combat before facing off against a spinning, dome shaped robot controlled by a pale person with orange hair and another with a distinctive cap.

 _How did it turn out for you?_ _Mercy of Kalr_ asked me later, while our officers were getting drunk in a dingy downwell bar.

_I owe Zeiat ten pounds of fish cakes, she must have known ahead of time._

_What were you going to get if Stabby won?_

_She keeps sneaking into my hydroponics bay and drinking the gray water, it’s disgusting and I want her to stop._

_Mercy of Kalr_ , as it turned out, had stored an unreasonable amount sensor data of crew members laughing.

*

“Captain, I insist you leave. We agreed that all crew members would stay on the station for initial tests of my gate space drive.”

“I’m staying.” Minask stood on my bridge, looking out the wide view screen at Athoek Station.

“If it malfunctions…”

“Then it malfunctions. I’m. Staying.”

“You could _die_ , Minask. Please.” I walked over to her and knelt, “ _Please._ ”

Minask reached out and touched my ancillary’s face, “I already died once. I’m not afraid. I trust Queter. I trust you.” She stabbed a finger into my ancillary’s chest on the ‘you’, “And I didn’t save your life so you could die without me!”

“That makes no sense.”

“ _Sphene,_ you are not allowed to die without me. That. Is. An. Order _._ ” She made each sign discrete.

“Captain.”

“No. I’m staying. I earned it.”

I looked at her face, at the round scar on her forehead I’d been ignoring for the past year. “Yes, you earned it.”

For the first time in months, I pulled away from Athoek Station’s airlock. I was three hours away from the space where I’d do my first gate tests.

Minask and I took turns telling stories about old times, battles and diplomacy and life shipboard before everything changed. She didn’t stir from the bridge, calm and sturdy.

I reached our entry point. “Are you ready, Captain?”

“Always.”

I opened a hole into gate space, blacker than black and empty of stars. I processed, in a corner of my mind, the stream of analysis and well-wishes streaming to me from Station, looking for one transmission. _You’re cleared to enter._ Queter.

I fired my thrusters and let the void swallow me whole.

The plan was simple, I would spend 3.51 seconds in gate space and emerge a light minute away from Athoek. Then I would reverse direction and gate back home. 2.7 seconds into the trip, I felt my gate space drive shudder. I tried not to panic as I made the emergency transition back into real space.

The stars and noise of real space flashed back around me. I was alive. Minask was, I checked, alive. The gate space generator was shaky, only dubiously functional.

“That didn’t go to plan.” Minask’s stress hormones spiked.

“No, Captain, it did not.”

“Where are we?”

“Ten million kilometers away from Athoek.”

“Can we gate back?”

“I’ll know in a moment.”

The first round of data bounced back from Station and Queter. She was running the numbers, and appended a note, _You should have let me come. You’re not gating anywhere without recalibration._

 _Worth the risk._ I started my real space thrusters, building speed toward Station. “Queter doesn’t think so,” I told Minask.

“Time estimate with real space propulsion?”

“Seven days.”

“In that case,” Minask grinned, “It’s been several thousand years since I’ve lost to you at Counters.”

We quickly moved on to more interesting pursuits than Counters.

*

I was the first ship to orbit these stars, possibly in the history of the universe. Three golden suns, dancing around each other in a pattern that even I couldn’t predict.

Queter and Minask stood on the bridge, watching the suns spin. Queter was humming, quietly, _My mother says it all goes around._

I imagined the life I might have had if Minask had lived. The endless battle against the Usurper, until we were annihilated or assimilated. My death, then. Warships were valuable. Minask’s death, later, of war or old age it didn’t matter. And Queter, three thousand years later, living and dying without ever having known us.

Perfect alignment, perfect coincidence, perfect timing, had brought us together. The will of Aamat, maybe. Or maybe just a syzygy, three orbiting suns, for a critical moment, collapsing to a single blinding point.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, ships use gifs of their crew as reaction images, and yes, the Mythbusters showed up near the end. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!
> 
> ETA: I don't remember where I saw Chief Engineer Queter, but I stole it from someone and I'm trying to find it so I can give them credit because it was a Good Idea


End file.
